And the stars heard and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
With the anthems of the free.
This was also the book that comforted Priscilla, when John Alden stole in and found that
Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of Ainsworth.
The later Puritans who came directly from England, on the other hand, were not “separatists,” hence they brought with them the psalm-book of Sternhold and Hopkins, which was the version of the Psaltery approved at that time by the Established Church.
The wretched paraphrases of the Psalms in both the Ainsworth and the “orthodox” version of Sternhold and Hopkins eventually led to an insistent demand among the New England Puritans for an entirely new psalm-book which should also adhere more closely to the Hebrew original. The result was the famous “Bay Psalmist” of 1640, which was the first book printed in British America.
The Puritan editors of this first attempt at American psalmody cared no more for poetic effect than did their brother versifiers across the waters. This they made quite plain in the concluding words of the Preface to the “Bay Psalmist”: “If therefore the verses are not always so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect; let them consider that God’s Altar needs not our pollishings: Ex. 20, for wee have respected rather a plaine translation, than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase, and soe have attended to Conscience rather than Elegance, fidelity rather than poetry, in translating the hebrew words into english language, and David’s poetry into english meetre: that soe wee may sing in Sion the Lords songs of praise according to his own will; untill hee take us from hence, and wipe away all our tears, & bid us enter into our masters joye to sing eternall Halleluiahs.”
The editors scarcely needed to apprise the worshiper that he should not look for artistic verses, for a glimpse within its pages was sufficient to disillusion any one who expected to find sacred poetry. The metrical form given the 137th Psalm is an example of the Puritan theologians’ contempt for polished language:
The rivers on of Babilon